


The Act of Makin' Noise

by HeyBoy, lethallyfreezingnewspaper



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Artist Steve Rogers, Battle of Azzano (Marvel), Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Child Abuse, Child Death, Child Soldiers, Dancing and Singing, Fanart, First Kiss, First Meetings, Happy Ending, Healing, Helicarrier (Marvel), Homophobic Language, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hydra (Marvel), Inspired by Music, Inspired by a Queen Song, It's part of the Asset's protocols, Kid Natasha Romanov, M/M, Making Up, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Painting, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Battle of Azzano (Marvel), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Psychological Torture, Red Room (Marvel), Sappy, Sappy Ending, Singing, Steve Rogers Kicks a Tree, Suicide (mentioned), Swing Dancing, Title from a Hozier Song, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, and making out, heh, not explicitly discussed, the author knows nothing about the 1930s so bear with me please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-01-30 19:41:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21433651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyBoy/pseuds/HeyBoy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethallyfreezingnewspaper/pseuds/lethallyfreezingnewspaper
Summary: Bucky Barnes is born with a melody on his lips.At age eight, he meets a tiny ball of raging sunshine.At twenty-four, he screams until he can sing no more.Seventy years later, The Winter Soldier hates music with a deep and furious passion.This is the story of how Bucky lost his music, and, eventually, found it again.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 42
Kudos: 127
Collections: Stucky Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! This idea has been floating around my head for AGES, and I've always wanted to participate in a Big Bang, so I thought... why not? It's been a super fun process, and the artist I'm working with (her tumblr and AO3 are in the end notes!) is absolutely AMAZING. Her art really adds an entire other layer to this story, and I'm so excited to share it with y'all. 
> 
> Now, some disclaimers/warnings before we begin:
> 
> \- This story does contain descriptions of torture (both psychological and mental), child soldiers, brain-washing, and a whole host of other nasty things- read the tags, and be careful.
> 
> \- I have tried to be as respectful as possible in my portrayal of the break-down of a human spirit. The last thing I want to do is glorify or minimize torture, trauma, or anything else that happens to Bucky in the slightest. If you see any part of this as problematic, feel free to (KINDLY, RESPECTFULLY) call me out on my mistake. I will endeavour to fix my mistake as quickly as possible. I am open to constructive criticism; mindless haters, however, can fuck off. 
> 
> \- I have little to no knowledge of the early 1900s, so if this seems completely and utterly inaccurate... that's because it is, lmao. Sorry about that. 
> 
> \- I am well aware that some of the songs I include in this fic wouldn't actually be listened to by Steve and/or Bucky. 'Hi Diddlee I Di', for example, was published in (I think??) 2010. So yes, I'm aware that's an issue, but the suspension of disbelief is also, like, a thing that humans are capable of, so.... use your imagination. 
> 
> Enjoy the story! :D

♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩

The soles of Steve’s cheap shoes pound out a rough beat as he dodges through the busy streets of Brooklyn. He screeches around a corner, throwing “Sorry!” over his shoulder to a woman he just bumped into as he sprints away. This pace won’t be sustainable for long; already, Steve can feel his asthma start to flair up, his body punishing him for pushing it this hard.

_ Damn that Eddie Sullivan. _Steve has been good lately- well, as good as any six-year-old can be. He’s managed not to get in a single fight in the past week, and Ma’s been so delighted that she hasn’t had to clean any bloodstains off his shirts. But then Eddie had come along, all mean and proud in his thirteen-year-old glory, crowding Steve into a corner of the schoolyard. He called Steve names, things Steve didn’t know the meaning of, but the sneer on Eddie’s face had made it clear that they weren’t good. 

_ Fairy. _

_ Daffodil. _

_ Twink. _

And with every name spat in his face, Steve had felt that awful fury ratchet up just a little more inside of himself, yelling at him to fight back, defend himself, _sock 'em all in the face_. Steve had swung without a second thought and all the force his tiny asthmatic body could muster, his fist arcing towards Eddie’s nose, and Eddie’s eyes had widened for a split second before Steve-

_ -missed. _

Of course he’d missed. One of Eddie’s buddies broke his glasses only last month, and Ma is still saving up for a new pair; right now the world is nothing but smears of colour. 

But the point is, he’d missed, and face-planted directly into the dusty ground of the schoolyard, messing up the neat lines of his only pair of school trousers. Eddie roared with laugher while Steve staggered upright, fists raised, never one to back down from- 

What had only been a single mean-looking blob of Eddie Sullivan had transformed into a _ bunch _ of mean-looking blobs. Eddie had gathered some backup- no, Eddie had gathered an _ audience _.

And as they crowded closer, forming themselves into ripped-up clothing and straggly teeth, all that indignant fury promptly fled Steve, and was replaced by just a little bit of misery. _ Dammit. Dammit! _ He’d been doing so well! Without the extra medical bills from all the grazes and bandages, Steve and Ma were going to go to the zoo for his birthday- which was only a few weeks away. He’d promised, _ promised, _that he’d stay out of fights until then. 

Steve Rogers is not the kind of person to run away from a fight, no matter how many people he’s up against. The thought of Ma's disappointment, however, far outweighed the temporary embarrassment of making a break for it.

So, Steve scrambled upright, backed away cautiously as they advanced on him like a pack of wolves, then turned tail and fled the schoolyard...

Which leads us back to his current situation, causing chaos on Myrtle Avenue as he ducks and evades those chasing him.

The main problem is, Steve’s body is not built for this kind of thing.

Steve’s body is built for many things. Painting. Drawing. Contracting diseases. Bruising. Some very light stretching. Perhaps, on certain days, even a few trips up and down the stairs. But Steve’s body is _not _built for fighting, sprinting, or holding all the stubbornness and will of a mama goat. 

Now Steve's definitely starting to have some difficulty breathing. He needs to find a way out of this situation, and fast, before he collapses and turns into a 35-pound asthmatic punching bag for some bored idiots. Steve risks a glance over his shoulder as he careens around a hotdog cart, and it looks like he’s managed to temporarily lose them in the bustling afternoon crowd. If he can just find a place to hid… ah-ha! A small, dingy alley piled with heaping mounds of trash catches his eye, and he sprints towards it, leaping over a stray cat on his way.

Steve's legs ache, his body angry at him for the unexpected physical exercise, and it’s probably not a good thing that his vision is starting to narrow. His entire body is shutting down, reducing his sensory input, slowly closing up shop. His thin shirt is sticky with sweat in the warm June breeze, and Steve’s sure that his face is a brilliant scarlet.

All that Steve can hear as he reaches the alley is his wheezing breathing, his lungs rattling around in his chest, and his heartbeat- his poor, unsteady heartbeat, limping along, filling his ears with the sound of rushing blood. He staggers into the cool, reeking dampness of the alley on the verge of collapse, knowing only that he needs to hide. Steve's mind is a cacophony of voices, one screaming about his lungs, the other his heart, the other about how he needs to hide, _ HIDE, _ and oh, he’s definitely going to faint soon, and now his vision has narrowed down to a tiny speck of the ground and, and-

Somewhere, close by, there’s an angel singing.

The high, clear voice floats through the air, winding around and around Steve, loving him, caressing him. It is a paradox; sharp as a knife, cutting out all the pain and the awful pounding in Steve’s head, and yet as sweet and soft as Ma’s old quilt, calming, grounding, coaxing him to slow down and breathe, _ just breathe. _It’s a breath of fresh air, quite literally, as that pure sound drags Steve from his head and he takes a deep breath for what feels like the first time in years- no, in _decades_. 

And he’s only six years old, so that’s saying something.

_'[It had to be you](https://youtu.be/JaehOBlYz_s?t=52),’ _the angel drawls, and _ god, _that voice is a drug. A painkiller- Steve would know, he’s been on them since the day he was born, and yet none of them have been quite as effective as this. It’s clear, sweet and gorgeous, as welcome as a cold glass of water on a summer’s day. Steve breathes it in, a proper breath this time, and feels it reverberate throughout him.

_ ‘It had to be you,’ _ He, because that wonderful angel is definitely a boy, sings again, and the line just flows throughout Steve’s body, hugging his crooked spine, tickling the tips of his toes, brushing along the back of his neck. That voice should be illegal. It probably _ is _illegal, it must be, because if it wasn’t then people would be lining up around the block to hear it. Steve can picture the signs now- 

COME HEAR THE MAGIC VOICE! 

IT CURES ALL AILMENTS,

THE PERFECT REMEDY TO ANY SICKNESS! 

  
  


Because that’s what Steve feels like- fully alive, fully awake, truly _healthy _for the first time in his life.

That lovely melody pauses for a moment, and Steve’s soul seems to be yanked back into his body, because he is suddenly, painfully aware of what he is doing. He is panting, sweat-soaked, next to a pile of trash, while he listens to a glorious stranger warble out of an open window. As lovely as this is, Steve has to move, has to hide. The trash pile is always an option, but that’s disgusting, and Steve would like to think he has at least _ some _dignity. There is an empty side street that grows off the end of the alley, which might hold some feasible hiding places.

_ ‘I wandered around,’ _The refrain drifts through the air again, and on second thought maybe the trash pile isn’t so bad if that means not having to leave that beautiful voice.

Just as Steve is hesitantly placing one foot on the pile, however, the rough bark of Eddie Sullivan interrupts him. 

“'ey, the twerp is in here!”

That angelic tone doesn’t stop, not seeming to hear Steve’s silent, frantic pleas for help, singing a bright _'__And finally found,’ _over the animalistic grumbling of the boys who converge on Steve. There is no getting out of this one- they have him surrounded, and from the glint in Eddie’s eye, Steve can tell he isn’t getting off easy this time.

‘_Somebody who-‘ _the angel draws out the note, and Eddie’s fist draws back in perfect unison, waiting, waiting. Eddie might be dumb as a sack of rocks, but someone as well-versed in pain as he is knows the anticipation is almost as bad as the hit itself.

The singer warbles out a beautiful _ ‘Could make me be true’, _ and Eddie punches Steve right in the gut. Steve can’t help but let out a loud cry of pain, and the note, which had been held as clear and sweet as glass on '_true', _ abruptly shatters. _ No, _Steve thinks desperately, as all remnants of that soft, hazy feeling disappear.

The boys close in, and Steve, despite all the trouble he went to, does get turned into a 35-pound asthmatic punching bag. He goes down hard, and fast, curling up on the concrete, trying to protect his head from their rough boots.

Steve vaguely registers a pattering of footsteps, and then someone- no, not someone, _ it’s the glorious stranger _\- yells “Hey! Pick on someone your own size, you idiots!”. 

And that kind of wants to make Steve laugh, that beautiful voice insulting Eddie, _ defending _Steve, but right now he’s still trying to re-catch his breath and not get kicked in the face again as the sounds of a scuffle pick up around him.

Steve manages to uncurl and kind of drag himself out of the way, next to the trash, as he watches the blobs of people dance around each other. Which are the bullies are obvious; they’re big and slow, going for brute force. The stranger, the saviour, is just a bit slimmer and slips around them with ease. There’s not much room to manoeuvre, but the smaller boy practically runs circles around them. He artfully targets their joints, making their knees buckle underneath them and bruising the side of their ribs. It’s obvious to both the brutes and Steve that they’re outmatched; they flee soon enough, tossing more rough insults over their shoulders in an attempt to preserve _ some _of their egos. 

Finally, the boy approaches Steve; big, steely eyes half-hidden by a muss of brown hair take him in. 

There’s a single beam of sunshine flowing through the alley, cutting through the gloom, and it lights up the boy’s face perfectly. Steve, feeling almost high off the combination of pain and song, thinks of the paintings he sees in church, the angels’ faces lit up by light sent from the heavens.

“Are you an angel?” he blearily murmurs.

The boy flashes a crooked grin, before cockily replying “Nah, but I can be your saviour if you want.”

  
And that, friends, is how Steve and Bucky meet.

♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩

♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩

They’re awkward almost-teens; Bucky is fourteen, Steve is twelve, and they’ve snuck into the back of a music hall. The building is rough, just splinter-filled wooden boards that jump on top of packed dirt as the crowd stomps in time to the fast tempo. There’s a band in the corner, swaying to the beat, and on the dance floor a couple in bright, cheap clothes swirl and twirl. They’re a ghostly spectacle near ascension, always one step ahead of the dance, always knowing what’s coming next.

What must that feel like? To know that if you spin, your partner will be there to steady you? To be so in-sync that your shoes can _ rat-tat-tat _across the floor almost too fast to see, but never stepping on each other’s toes?

Steve considers this conundrum, this perfect balance of trust and risk, as he stares through the packed crowd. Although they're in a back corner, about as far away from the commotion as they can be, Bucky is pressed close, a line of warmth next to him. The song winds to a close and the couple finishes with a bow, chests heaving, foreheads glistening with sweat.

The band quickly starts up another song, a loud, brassy fanfare, and Steve feels Bucky jump with excitement beside him; it’s one of their favourites, an old track that seems to blast out of the radio day and night. 

[An Old Track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3PH3LtsJMU)

Bucky turns, pulling Steve to face him, a mischievous light in his eyes. He takes Steve’s hands and leads them in a basic swing step in time to the fast music. Steve’s terrible at this, always has been, but follows along anyway,_ rock-step-triple-step, _ just to see that beautiful floppy-haired, snaggle-toothed grin Bucky always gets when he’s like this. 

Bucky starts singing along, staring Steve right in the eyes as they swing around and around, _ rock-step-triple-step, _ in a dark corner of a hidden-away music hall, an intimate little bubble that no one can touch, a small area that glows with their own private light as they move and jump to the music.

_ ‘There’s a twinkle in your eye,’ _ Bucky drawls, his voice overpowering the lead singer’s this close to Steve, and _ god. _It’s been six years, six years of hearing Bucky casually hum tunes and sing along to the radio, but Steve will never get used to that voice.

_ ‘Won’t you tell me it’s for me,’ _ Bucky hit puberty just a couple of years ago, and while the rest of him is still gangly and awkward, his voice slipped effortlessly from a soaring soprano to a thick, gorgeous, molasses tenor. ‘ _ Oh, baby I adore ya, lemme sing it for ya,’ _That thick Brooklyn accent shines right through, tugging on his As.

He winks and twirls them around,_ rock-step-triple-step_, impossibly faster, _rock-step-triplesteprocksteptriplestep_. They dance that familiar fast-paced pattern, throughout the rest of the song, but Bucky makes sure to keep them close, to not push Steve too hard, never making it anything more than an easy game. He sings the entire thing, wiggling his hips and eyebrows during the saxophone solo, making Steve giggle.

He belts the last line, really gives it is all over the blaring trumpets, singing _ ‘Hey baby, give your love to me!’ _ with all his might. Nobody gives their corner a second glance as Bucky holds the last note, really _ sings _ it as the horns give their final fanfare, and just as the song comes to an end, they both surge together- _ a perfect balance of trust and risk _ \- and kiss.

It’s not the best, to be honest; neither have any idea what they’re doing, and they’re both grinning and panting from the dance too much to really do anything but press their lips together briefly, but it’s still a kiss.

  
And as they separate, their hair both glorious, sweaty messes, Bucky’s low chuckle as smooth as honey, all Steve can think is _god, I wanna do that again._

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

The captured soldiers sing while they toil in the Hydra factory. They pretend not to hear the screams of those who’ve been hauled to the laboratories, they pray that they won’t be taken next, and they sing, sing, _ sing, _to drown out the pain.

Bucky is picked out pretty soon after they’re captured. It’s natural; he’s fit, young, and too good at boosting morale to risk leaving him with the other captives. He’s not taken far. The laboratories are right next to the production lines of weapons- a constant reminder, threat, promise. _If you step out of line, you are taken to the labs, and no-one ever comes back from there._

Bucky, if he strains his ears, can hear the rough tunes being sung over the heavy machinery. He hums along, sometimes, or makes up his own melodies; anything, really, to try to take his mind off the pain, off the torture.

He sings more loudly when the Hydra techs come in, just to piss them off. To say _you’ve not broken me yet, you bastards._

They like to make him scream until his vocal cords give out, until he physically _can’t_ sing anymore. Bucky can see the joy on their faces when he opens his mouth and nothing comes out but a strained gasp.

He mouths lyrics anyway, because _fuck you, Hydra._

As time drags on, though, singing, _resisting,_ becomes more difficult. As more and more men are taken, and the melodies that drift down from the production lines get fainter and fainter, Bucky feels parts of his hope beginning to slip away. Starts to consider pleading for no more pain, _no more pain. _That’s his life now, though; a metal table and a constant cycle of pain. Time is no longer defined by the minutes, hours, or days. Instead, it is defined by when he is being sliced open and vivisected with no anaesthetic, and when he is not. It is defined by when he can roughly grumble tunes, and when he can only gasp them.

He doesn’t beg, though. Even as more and more fire is injected into his veins and with every passing heartbeat the hope of rescue grows smaller, he doesn’t beg. 

There are only two things in the world that Bucky Barnes would beg for: music, and a punk named Steven Grant Rogers. 

When Bucky mentions _his music _to Steve the first time, they’re sitting on the pier, dangling their legs over the water. It’s only a few days after they met for the first time, and Steve thinks he means a recording. A gramophone, perhaps, or one of those fancy radios he sees in the shop windows. He keeps on mentioning it, though, and over time Steve works something out; when Bucky talks about his music, he talks about _all_ music. Any music. The musicality that fills Bucky Barnes, that causes him to burst out into song in harmony with the birds chirping in Central Park, to hum and grumble along in time to the ship’s horns out in the harbour. You can take away Bucky Barnes’ gramophone, and all his recordings; but you can’t take away _his music_.

And the only other thing in the entire world that Bucky would beg for is Steve.

Bucky had tried to bargain, you know. Had gone to church all proper when he was nine, got down on his knees, and prayed. _Please God, just let me take his place. Let me take his ailments. He is such a good person, and he deserves to have a long life. Please. …amen? _That was the one, and only, time Bucky actually prayed like someone was listening in. The only time Bucky ever begged in his life, for anything.

He left the church that day with hope in his chest, hope that faded over the years as Steve continued to be small and sickly, and Bucky continued to be healthy and strong and the best boxer in all of Brooklyn.

But right now, as he lies strapped to a metal table in Azzano, hope draining, dripping out of him in time to the droplets of blood hitting the floor, Bucky Barnes does not beg. Because he still has his music, and he still has Steve out there, somewhere, _safe. _And so Bucky Barnes does not beg.

He stays silent, when they prep him, ruthlessly stripping all hair from his body, wheeling in vials upon vials of that awful solution that makes fire lick up and down his veins. But he doesn’t beg.

He screams when they inject it all, more than they ever have before, one after another after another, pumping him full of strange chemicals that makes his insides scorch and his breath taste like smoke. But he doesn’t beg.

He cries when they leave him to smoulder, his body reduced to nothing but ashes, all alone in a room that becomes a fire pit. But he doesn’t beg.

Bucky’s charred mind is pulled from the embers by explosions, the frantic pounding of feet and men yelling, _English_ voices yelling, and- _oh._

Could this the rescue, then? 

It seems almost good to be true, but just as the last droplets of hope roll out of Bucky’s mind, a tsunami, a flood, comes crashing back in.

With it comes Bucky’s voice.

His voice is gravelly. But he sings, sings, soft and low in the dark air.

_[ 'Oh, Say Can You See](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhGdHHjZ_7o), by the dawn’s early light,’ _The national anthem of the country that left Bucky for dead rattles around in the concrete cell, dragged out from a dying man on fire who is drowning in hope.

It’s coming to a crescendo now, the fire in his veins and the yelling and the footsteps, but Bucky’s voice only grows louder in proportion. 

His voice cracks on _ ‘The land of the free,’ _ unused to the high notes, but he perseveres, ending in a rough, choked-off _ ‘and the home… of the brave.’ _

And just as he draws in a shaky breath, as that final grand crescendo comes to an end, the door slams open, and- _Steve?_

Oh, _Steve._

_Steve._

_Steve!_

It’s most definitely Steve. Just… bigger, and a lot stronger, and holy hell, would you _look _at those biceps. 

Bucky’s feeling a bit delirious, if you can’t tell, and really, there’s only one logical explanation for this.

So Bucky, once Steve, _(Steve, Steve, Steve!) _has yanked him free of those terrible leather cuffs, stares up at him and says ‘Are you an angel?’

And Steve huffs, this horrible, snot-filled, tear-soaked breath of air, and hugs him tightly, stupidly huge face pressed into the side of Bucky’s neck, and murmurs ‘Nah, but I can be your savior if you want.’

Bucky doesn’t quite believe it, once all is said and done. How could he _not _be in heaven, with Steve all- all _perfect_? He thinks back to that moment, just over ten years ago, when he’d begged- _begged - _for Steve to become big and strong and healthy. A change this dramatic could only be an act of God, an act of heaven, and an act of something _more. _

But then they meet that horrible, demonic creature- _the Red Skull, _Zola had referred to him as. And there’s no way that something that terrible could be in heaven, so- so- 

This must be real. 

And isn’t that a strange thought? That gods can grow from labs and devils can walk the earth and Steve’s arms can be bigger than Bucky’s head. 

That last fact is the one that Bucky has the most difficulty wrapping his head around. The unknown, the _ inhumane, _is something larger than them all, something that can be put off and not thought about. But being able to use Steve’s arms as a pillow? That’s just straight-up weird. 

Not that Bucky’s complaining. Actually, all means he has to take some time to appreciate those biceps, really linger over them, when Steve desperately pulls him into the woods a couple of hours later. 

And Steve’s keeping the outfit, too, so that’s just another plus.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

The Howling Commandos are on a mission, one that shouldn’t be all that dangerous. It’s the retrieval of some papers Peggy suspects might help crack the German enigmas; with them, the Allies would have unparalleled access to German communications and troop movements. 

The intel given to them is scarce, just like the guards are supposed to be. _Nothing much, just a couple of guys in an old bunker in the middle of nowhere._

Surprisingly, for the most part, it is just that; a worn-down metal building in a small clearing, with minimal protection. Really, the reason the Howling Commandos were sent on this mission is more for the fact they’re the only ones that can be trusted to carry some _ paper _a couple of hundred miles, rather than that this would provide them with any actual challenge. Actually, Bucky’s the only one Peggy trusts to carry the papers, but you can’t get one Howling Commando without getting them all, so.

They get in and out in less than thirty minutes, just charging straight at the door, leaving a string of knocked-out goons behind them. Steve bursts into the securest room right as the guards try to set fire to the papers. He knocks them all out with a quick hurl of his shield, it bouncing around and off the walls with terrifying accuracy. Steve and Jones gather up the papers, stuffing them into a secure metal, water-proof, fire-proof, explosion-proof, everything-proof briefcase, before hauling ass out of there.

It’s when they’re leaving that they run into trouble. Right as they leave the bunker Steve’s intuition - a thousand tiny details being picked up by his super-soldier brain and formed into a picture- has him throwing the shield at a sniper posted in a tree. The sniper falls to the ground with an _oof_ and the crack of bones before any of the other Commandoes knew that something was wrong

It’s obvious this bunker isn’t very well guarded, or by very smart men. Who puts snipers right outside of the building? A few miles down, along the road, picking off enemies before they even catch sight of the building- now that makes sense. On your walls? That’s just a waste of ammo and men.

But the thing is, the Howling Commandos are _used _to fighting smart people. To fighting people with good strategies, who know exactly how to use snipers and tanks to their best advantage. So- when faced with such absolute, complete idiocy- _that _is when things start to go down-hill.

The first sniper fell due to Steve’s shield; unfortunately, he takes the damn thing with him, ending up curled the ground, half-on-top of the giant target, moaning. A shield in the ribs isn’t fun, even on the best of days, and Steve is left defenceless.

They hustle behind a row of haphazardly-parked trucks (more signs of incompetence), but even then they’re out in the open. It’s not good cover; in the mid-afternoon sun, their shadows will be easily visible through the fabric stretched over the metal frames of the trucks, and for a second sniper it’d be like shooting fish in a barrel. Steve’s eyesight, sharper than everyone else’s, is already scanning the treeline.

It takes a few seconds, but he spots another one, poorly hidden in the leaf growth of a conifer. The sniper is maybe thirty feet up, and at the other end of the line of trucks. Judging from the sharp intake of breath on Steve's left, Bucky’s spotted him, too. Bucky starts moving fast, real fast, jamming his scope in place, switching it over from short- to long-range, preparing to take him down. He’s not going to be fast enough, though; even as Bucky moves, the sniper is shifting minutely. Steve’s seen Bucky, seen that eerily cat-like stillness right before a shot enough times to know that they have mere _ seconds _before one of them goes down, and that damn shield is still half-buried under an idiot, fifty feet away, in the middle of the clearing.

Steve takes it all in in a quick glance: the sniper, the lack of shield, the poor coverage, the ticking down seconds. He makes a second of eye contact with Bucky, and – oops.

Years ago, in the corner of a dance hall, Steve wondered what it would be like to know a person so well you could tell the future. What it would be like to have this partner, this person that’s always one step ahead of you. Steve _knows _Bucky saw that glance, knows that Bucky knows exactly what he’s going to do. In slow motion, Bucky drops the gun and leaps at him, trying to tackle him to the ground, _ stop _him.

Steve pushes himself over the hood, into the line of fire, hearing Bucky’s _ oof _as he hits the ground behind Steve.

Steve doesn’t think, he just _moves._

He races along the line of cars, before leaping- plants one foot on the hood of the last truck, the second foot on the roof- and launches himself up, straight at the sniper. Steve has a brief moment, barely a flash, where he sees the wide eyes of a guy who has approximately 250 pounds of pure, unabashed American flying straight at him like a fucking bald eagle, before they crash into each other and fall to the ground.

It’s heavy on the ribs, and the butt of the rifle forces all the air out of his lungs in a whoosh, but the sniper is down for the count, and so they’re good. Steve snatches the shield out of the air, tossed to him by Dum-Dum, grabs the briefcase, makes sure everyone is accounted for, and they dash away into the woods. The entire thing takes less than thirty seconds.

The group jogs along in formation, an easy line. Once they get a couple of miles from the bunker, the others begin chuckling and commenting as they run. _Really flew through the air, didn’t he? _and _Imagine how scary it would be, having Cap face-plant on you. Would rather die by those Hydra weapons, I’d say. _

Bucky doesn't say a word. 

He keeps them at a fast pace, loping through the woods, for another couple of hours. They’ve passed a couple of potential spots to camp, but whenever he considers slowing, Steve thinks about the talking-to he’ll be getting from Bucky. Perhaps, if they keep going for another couple of minutes, then Bucky will just forget about the whole thing and it’ll all be fine.

Who is he kidding. 

The Commandos begin complaining after a while, the type that’s more for the sake of complaining than for what they’re actually grumbling about, but Steve has them set up camp at the next small clearing anyway. Might as well get it over with.

Bucky disappears into their tent with a scowl and the promise of anger in his eyes. Steve dithers about camp, setting up the fire they’re allowed this deep in the woods, before eventually realizing that, yeah, he’s just delaying the inevitable.

He ducks into their tent, and- _ouch. _Bucky’s sleeping bag, usually pressed right up against his own, is on the far side of the (rather tiny) tent. On top of it sits a Very Annoyed Bucky, who redirects his Glare Of A Thousand Angry Suns from the tops of his knees to Steve. They stare at each other for a second, daring the other to speak.

Steve caves. 

“Look, I didn’t want to risk-”

“Didn’t want to risk? Oh, so now we’re all about _calculating risk, _are we? You- you- absolute idiot. I could maybe understand- _maybe_\- you running full force at a fucking _sniper _and BODY SLAMMING HIM OUT OF A TREE if you had your shield with you. But you had no cover, none. If he had been a second faster- you could’ve- I’m – you could be _dead, _Steve. Dead. Done. On the forest floor, your stupid fuckin’ brains getting all over the pine needles.”

“We didn’t have any cover- it was the fastest way to get rid-”

“The fastest way? THE FASTEST WAY? Steve, I was literally _two seconds_ from shooting that idiot out of the tree. Two seconds wouldn’t have made much a difference-”

“Those two seconds could’ve been the difference between one of us bein’ dead and alive-”

“So you’re just going to run straight at him instead, hoping he doesn’t just-”

“He was obviously an amateur, I could tell he’d freak out-”

“All the more reason to let me handle it like a normal, _rational _human being-”

“I was being rational, you’re just not _listening _to me,-”

“No, you made a stupid call, and now you’re not owning up to it-”

“I AM YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER.”

The words burst out of Steve before he has time to stop them, and while the sharp pangs of regret stab him immediately, they keep on flowing. 

“It is my job, my _ duty, _ to make split-second decisions, and I did the best I could in that situation, and I _ stand by it. _ And so if you have a problem with it, _ Sargent-” _ The title tears out of his mouth, snapping across the empty space between them, “Then I kindly suggest you take it up with my superiors.”

Steve whirls around and storms out of the tent. The rest of the team, not-so-subtly eavesdropping as they crouch around the fire, stare at him in surprise. Steve huffs, mutters something about gathering more firewood, and stalks off into the woods.

He does actually gather firewood. He might also throw some stones at a tree. If he does, well, it’s nobody’s business but his own.

This has always been how it is, though, and Steve suspects it might always be this way. Steve does something stupid; Bucky yells at him for it; Steve sticks by it, no matter what, because like _hell _is he backing down now; one of them takes it too far. 

They always find their way back to each other, though. Steve and Bucky might be as stubborn as donkeys, but there's no avoiding your other half. 

He’s never pulled rank like that before, though. That _was_ kind of a shitty thing to do, Steve glumly admits to himself as he watches a small creek trickle down some rocks. He doesn’t regret body-slamming the sniper, though.

Steve kicks around in the woods (literally- a nice oak has a dent in it that wasn’t there this morning) as the sun sets, watches the dappled shadows fade into night, before following the vague light of the fire- only detectable due to his advanced eyesight- back to camp. The rest of the group is still gathered around the campfire, half-eaten meals in hand. Steve hears Falsworth threatening to break out his harmonica as he approaches, to which there is lots of moaning and groaning. They all fall silent when he walks into the circle of light, and Dernier jerks his head back towards Steve and Bucky’s tent in response to Steve’s silent question.

As he walks away, the conversation picks up again, and the first harmonica strains of _Kiss Me Goodnight Sargent Major _twirl up throughout the air, carried into the stars by the smoke of the fire. 

When Steve enters the tent, Bucky is curled up on his bag, back to the flap. He goes and sits down, crisscrossed, on his sleeping bag, and Bucky rolls over to face him.

They regard each other for a quiet moment, each one just taking in the planes and lines of their faces in the near-darkness. Bucky breaks the silence this time.

“If you’re here to argue more about what the right call was, I don’t want to hear it. But I shouldn’t have called you a fuckin' idiot.” Bucky fiddles with his dog tags.

“Buck…” Steve swallows, looking anywhere but Bucky. “I shouldn’t have said that either. Shouldn’t’ve held my rank over you. M’sorry.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow, like he’s contemplating arguing for one brief moment, before he sighs.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t have.” His eyes burn holes in the side of Steve’s head. “Guess that serum didn’t make you any less of a dipshit, huh, Stevie?”

Steve huffs, both amused and relieved. With that little nickname- nothing, really, just two simple syllables- Bucky says so much. He accepts the apology- _It’s okay. I forgive you. _It was also a reminder- _I can’t lose you. _It was a beg- _please, be a bit more careful. _It was a talking too- _imagine what your mother would think, seeing you throwing yourself around like a sack of flour. _It was a pep talk- _you’re worth more than that. Your life is worth more than that, to me, to you, to Peggy, to the team. _

“Yeah, well, takes one to know one,” Steve snarks back, and Bucky barks out a short laugh. Nothing big, there can’t be too much joy out here on the front, but it’s enough. The two of them have always talked like this; growing up together, living together, fighting together, lets you see the layers, _understand _the layers of meaning in every word.

Steve and Bucky can convey more information to each other in two sentences than some people can in _ days _.

Peggy would say it’s unclear communication, or an inability to fully confront issues, but nothing’s hidden, with these two. To them, what the other person is trying to say is clear as day, might as well have been written upon a bill-board.

Bucky reaches across their tiny space and drags Steve’s sleeping bag- and Steve along with it- towards him. _Jesus, when did he get so strong? _Steve barely has time to think, before Bucky’s pulling him in for a kiss, and- oh.

Later, they lie there, curled around each other in the middle of nowhere, breathing each other’s air. They can still hear the men singing around the campfire- someone’s obviously broken out the alcohol. Steve will have a difficult time rousing them in the morning, but they’re tough. They’re the Howling Commandos; being able to run a literal marathon to a pick-up point after a night of heavy drinking is practically a requirement. It might be, actually- Steve will check on the official forms next time they get back to camp, if only to get a laugh out of Peggy.

Bucky, singing quietly along with them, drags Steve out of his thoughts. They’re both different, after Azzano; both a bit quieter, a bit more solemn. No matter the circumstances, killing, slaughtering, being on the battlefield changes you.

They’re Steve and Bucky, though. They make it work.

Bucky still sings a lot, though not quite as loudly as he used to. Not as many happy songs, either; where he used to sing _ Greatest Hits of the 1930s, _now he sings war songs, songs about love and loss and death and getting drunk just to ignore all of that. Steve can understand; some days, some missions, he just wants it all to fade away.

They’re working on it. Working on reaching out to each other when the world seems too dark, on breaching the walls of silence they build up in their minds, necessary protection against the vile things that they see on a day-to-day basis.

They lie there, barely able to make out each other’s silhouettes in the dark European night, and Bucky breathes a melody into Steve’s lungs.

_ '[Be true to me, ](https://youtu.be/dv3C2VYJtpk?t=45)sweetheart mine,’ _ He whispers in that deep, smooth voice, as the Commandos sing a much rowdier, harmonica-filled version outside. _ ‘Rain or shine, sweetheart mine,’ _

Steve presses forward, just a brief kiss on Bucky’s lips, a promise. _ End of the line. Rain or shine. _

They finish the line together, the song dancing between their lips, the notes flowing and bursting inside of them with no-where to go. _ ‘And I’ll be just as true to you, as the Red, White, and Blue.’ _

They both know that’s a lie. Both of them, Steve and Bucky, know the true reason they’re out here is the other one. When it came down to it, the reason Bucky signed up in the first place, the reason he didn’t leave after Azzano- take a medical discharge and sail back to NYC- is to protect Steve. The entire reason Steve broke his bonds, turned from a show-horse into a soldier, is to protect Bucky.

So they lie there and listen to their men, their team, their best friends, drink and laugh and sing outside the tent. And they cling to each other and fill the air with silent apologies and forgiveness and love, love, _ so much love. _

While they might fight, while they might make mistakes, while they might be idiots and talk without thinking and have to go off and kick trees, at the end of the day, Steve loves Bucky and Bucky loves Steve.

Nothing can take that away.

...right?

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

Bucky thought he knew pain.

He thought he knew how to handle it, how to breathe through it, how to make it fade into the background.

He thought it was an old friend after Azzano, a tool to be used against enemies instead of something to be afraid of.

Bucky was wrong. Pain is hell and fire and ice and the worst of extremes, pain can never be _ friendly, _ pain can only be punishment, a reminder, _ this is what you did wrong. _

_ This is how you fell. _

_ This is how your arm ripped off as you screamed. _

_ This is how the tears froze on your cheeks. _

Pain is not an old friend. It is an insidious phoenix, forever rising from the ashes of previous wounds, inescapable, invincible, and burning, burning, bright white and red flames engulfing Bucky’s thoughts.

Of course they find him again. _ Of course. _

Pain may be a phoenix but Hydra is just what the name says; an unstoppable monster, always spreading, spitting acid and torture and sorrow wherever it may be.

_ Cut off one head. Two more will grow back. _

How stupid Bucky was, to think that he could get away from a phoenix and a hydra.

How naïve, to think that he could escape the inescapable.

They put him in a small cell. It is completely dark. Water and food are delivered once a day.

The world fades away.

They leave him there.

He is alone, all alone, in the infinite darkness. 

He tries his best not to go mad, sings endless songs to himself. Thinks about what Steve would say, if he were here. Bucky cycles through his entire repertoire, again and again and again and again. His life is narrowed down to the brief glimpse of light from the food slot, the scratches on the wall, Steve, and _ song. _

The wall says it’s been two months when they drag him out and tell him to shoot a woman. The gun trembles in his single hand, and he almost drops it.

He goes back into the darkness.

But it’s _ worse,_ because it isn’t the darkness. Now, it’s flashing lights, strobing all over the room, changing so quickly his eyes can never register one before it’s the other, _ light-dark-light-dark-light-dark-light-dark _and Bucky just curls up on the floor and blocks it all out. 

He doesn’t count the days on the wall, but it is a long time, _ so long, please help me save me Steve Steve Steve- _

They come for him again, and he does not shoot the woman. 

The cell is blissfully dark when he returns, and he collapses on the ground, days and weeks of terrible sleep catching up on him. His empty sleeve throbs with impossible pain, the phoenix simply reminding him of its presence.

The cell begins to fill with water, and only then does he notice that the food slot is gone, that there is no way for it to escape. He’s afraid that they’ll just keep at it, filling and filling and filling and filling until he’s dead and drowned, but-

It stops, near Bucky’s waist, and at first, he’s grateful. 

But now he can’t sit,

Or sleep, 

Or eat. 

He stands as long as he can, braces himself in the corner, and forces himself to drink the same water he’s just pissed in, because _ FUCK YOU, HYDRA, _Bucky Barnes doesn’t give up that easily. He manages to last a couple of days, he thinks, all though there’s really no way to tell.

They turn the flashing lights back on, and he doesn’t last an hour. His legs buckle beneath him and he flails in the water, gasping, choking-

He does not shoot the person. 

It becomes an endless cycle, as they constantly add new tortures- suffocating heat, or no food, or spikes that protrude from the walls. 

He persists, he survives, and he spits in their face when they give him the gun and a victim.

Every.

Single.

Time.

It’s been so long, _ too long, _months and months at least. 

But Bucky persists, he stays there, because Bucky Barnes is as stubborn as a goat, and he’ll only beg for two things in life: Music, and Steve.

Bucky doesn’t know what his breaking point is. 

That’s a fucking lie.

It’s the day they turn on the sound, the voice, the _ word_. 

It’s a horrible buzzing rhythm, something Bucky hears as much in his teeth as in his ears, and it rattles _ everything. _The food tray dances across the floor and Bucky can feel his eyes bouncing around in his head but worst of all, worst of all is that-

He opens his mouth to sing, his feet are already numb from the vibrations of the floor, and he _ can’t hear his voice. _

Bucky is singing, he’s sure of it, but it’s all drowned out by a horrible drone, a terrible, mind-shattering rhythm that repeats again and again. 

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OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY 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OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY _

He doesn’t even know if he’s a person, anymore, or simply a thing that takes up space in the darkness. A voice with no sound. A receptor of noise, a jittery hand on the shaking concrete floor, _ OBEY OBEY OBEY- _

A trigger finger that won’t work.

He waits for Steve, waits and waits and waits, and every day, Steve doesn’t come. Every day, he edges nearer and nearer to dissolving into inexistence.

Everything is too much, too loud, and yet not enough, _not enough noise_ at the same time.

He squeezes the trigger.

The shot echoes round and round the warehouse.

She dies instantly. It is a small mercy.

The murderer forces himself to watch as the cleaners scurry about, as they drag her body off with a streak of blood that will forever stain the concrete floor. He ignores the pleased murmuring of officers wrapped in red tentacles and dark, dark, _no no no more dark no more noise no more _ _OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY. _

He is not put back in the dark, but he doesn’t care. 

Before this, before he _broke,_ he was waiting to be rescued by Steve. It’s the only thing that kept him sane throughout the dark and the noise, until his mind _became_ the dark, until the person became formless and shapeless and nothing but a silent voice in the void. Then they dragged him out, and he shot the woman- god, _he shot the woman._

How can a thing with no substance shoot a woman?

He- it? - doesn’t deserve to be saved by Steve, now. He has become a non-existence, a paradox of creation and destruction, forever hovering on the line of life. Shooting the woman, again and _again and again and again._

Steve cannot rescue that which cannot be saved.

He still doesn’t beg, even as they stab him and inject him and replace his mangled arm with something _worse_. He has his music inside, can feel it bubbling up within in him. Has he become the music, in a way? He thinks of the crocus blubs his Ma kept precious care of over the winter, which lay in wait until it was safe to bloom. That terrible noise, _OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY _drowned it out but now that it is gone, replaced by pain- oh, pain, a simple thing next to flashing lights and shaking legs and the desperation of a drowning man. 

If he became nothing in the darkness, fell too deep into the ravine of his mind to crawl back out, perhaps he is simply melody floating on a cool evening breeze.

Melodies don’t shoot people, he tells himself as they slide knives into his skin. _ You deserve this. _

He might not be a song, he might still be able to succumb to that horrible phoenix, but he still has music in his mind.

Music and Steve. 

And Steve, well, Steve. He might not deserve Steve, might deserve a life of burning in the phoenix’s feathers, but as long as that bright sunshine is alive, is somewhere in the world, nothing can take Steve from him.

He is in his nightly cell, humming a children’s tune to keep away the darkness. They have not tried to forbid him from singing, not yet. His mind is a bombed-out husk of a building, with nothing left but meandering notes and a little blond punk who just can’t shut up. 

Recently, since he shot the woman -_ god he shot the woman - _the work and torture are mostly medical, but something is coming. There have been new machines, the past couple of days, and more techs around than normal. Yesterday, he was put in a new chair with some odd head contraptions, but none of them have actually been used yet.

He turns all of this over in his muddled, pain-wrecked, burnt mind, and hums a song. A children’s song.

_Ring around the rosie,_

_A pocketful of posies,_

_Ashes, ashes_

_We all fall-_

The door slams open, cutting him off, and a guard throws something inside- a newspaper?- before closing the door again.

He re-starts the song as he goes over to investigate.

He’s singing, when he reads the title, when he sees the photo.

And then he’s not singing, he’s screaming, awful animal shrieks that tear at his throat, because Steve- _Steve._

They come for him the next day and find him curled up around the newspaper, shaking with sobs, eyes too dried out to make any actual tears.

He doesn’t complain when they drag him away and put him in the chair. They strap in the head contraption on this time, but Bucky doesn’t care, because Steve- _Steve- he. He’s gone._

He stares up at the ceiling and cries while the machine hums to life.

The phoenix, burning, burning, is reborn.

It burns his brain apart, his mind is on fire, his mind _is _fire, and above all is the phoenix rising from the flames, always coming back. There is no way to distance himself from this pain, it permeates throughout all his very being, tearing his soul apart.

Steve is gone. Steve is gone. He’s gone. _He’s gone. HE’S GONE. GONE GONEGONEGONE-_

Who is gone?

Is it him?

Who is he?

_What _is he?

The machine grinds to a stop, the phoenix taking flight, leaving him for now, always to return.

He is in a lab, and everyone’s staring at him, and tears are pouring down his face and he doesn’t quite know why.

They show him the newspaper, and he understands why he was crying.

_He_ is Steve. _He _is Bucky. Steve is gone, dragging Bucky down into the depths of hell, and the phoenix comes flying back.

It is a dance, a cycle, that they repeat again and again. _Wipe-show-scream. Wipe-show-scream. _And Bucky starts losing things as they pick up the pace, starts forgetting who he is, _why _he is. It’s a dance, though. _Wipe-show-scream. Wipe-show-scream. Rock-step-triple-step. _

As he loses things, pieces of his mind slipping and fracturing away, he starts to retain things, as well. He is wiped, and the lab is no longer foreign. The techs are no longer unfamiliar. He wakes up, the phoenix once again having risen in his mind, and knows something bad is coming. Terrible. Life-rendering, soul-crushingly terrible.

He starts begging when he wakes up. _Please don’t tell me. Don’t do it. I don’t want to know, I don’t know what it is, but please. Please. Please._

They perform the dance, _wipe-step-triple-show-scream-scream-scream, _a few more times anyway.

It wakes up in a familiar lab with familiar people, a burning wasteland of a mind, and the worst thing in the world on the horizon. It doesn’t know what it is, but it’s coming.

They tell it, _It’s simple. We can stop it. _They give it a gun again (_again?_), and tell it to shoot the man.

It shoots the man, to save the world.

Then they give it a newspaper, and the world ends anyway. It doesn’t know the face, doesn’t understand what any of the pictures and words _mean, _but it screams and cries and watches as its blood-stained, trembling fingers gently trace the sharp lines and blue eyes _(that have a hint of green in them in the light shining through the window from the streetlamps)._

_  
_ They put it away for the night in a cell, and the darkness swallows it whole.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

Over time, as the Winter Soldier’s imprisonment stretches from months, to years, to decades, Hydra begins to lazy. Sloppy. As the original creators of the Winter Soldier retire or die (mostly die), and fresh-faced new recruits are brought in to deal with _ the thing, _ they all begin to forget just how indomitable, just how _ resilient _Bucky Barnes is.

They lend him to the Red Room, along with a notebook of rules, and a list of trigger words. The guards of the Red Room memorize the trigger words and barely glance at the rules. _ It’s like a dog, _ they were told, _ It’ll do whatever you tell it to. _ They don’t worry about it. It’s the Asset; if they say _ teach, _ it’ll _ teach. _

____

Time: Unknown

Date: Unknown

Country: Unknown

Status: Beginning the unthawing process

The arm begins to unfreeze, its gears grinding to remove the ice of the cryofreeze tank.

Not that the Asset notices.

_Protocol 15.2: The Asset only takes in and processes relevant information._

Relevant Information: The lab it is in is not familiar.

Has the Asset been captured by enemy forces?

_Protocol 53.6: In case of enemy capture with no hope of rescue (re: HYDRA has been fully eliminated) the Asset shall self-destruct. Methods of allowed self-destruction are detailed in protocol 54. Note: The Asset is not permitted to attempt self-destruction in any other circumstances._

The protocols flit through the Asset’s mind, but the new technicians have the rule book, the one that makes shivers crawl down the Asset’s spine when it sees it. That means they cannot be the enemy.

It has been ordered to teach.

_Teach who? Teach what?_

Information will be provided as necessary. The Asset is not permitted to ask questions.

It is led into a room where twenty small girls stand, hair tied into pigtails.

The Asset is instructed to teach them to kill.

The information has been provided.

The Asset begins to teach.

The Widows learn quickly. They must. The Asset does not take kindly to being disobeyed and does not take pity on the stupid ones. If it shows weakness, the girls might be taken away, and it might be returned to the cold.

That is undesirable.

The Asset does not have desires.

The days wear on, and flashes begin to interrupt the Asset’s function.

Zoya laughs at another girl’s fallacy, and she is briefly superimposed by a girl with the same brown hair/bright eyes and _the most snaggle-toothed smile he’d ever seen. He loves his sister beyond words, and-_

What.

The Asset is impaired.

It must inform the guards, so it can be taken back, properly processed, and wiped.

A small spider, Natalia, has taken advantage of the Asset’s distraction while they are sparring and has cut him shallowly in the side with a knife. While not much, it is more than anyone has accomplished in the three weeks they’ve been training.

The Asset dispatches her easily, not holding back, and approaches one of the two guards guarding the doors of the room.

The Asset informs him that it is impaired.

The guard bandages up its side, which was dripping on the floor, and tells the Asset not to be a pussy.

The guard sends the Asset back out to the training room.

The Asset is still impaired. The guard misunderstood.

But it knows better than to correct its superiors. 

More time wears on. The Widows get better, quicker, cleverer; Natalia is the best of them all. Zoya is the worst. The Asset gets more and more _ flashes of street-lights and hot-dogs and a bouncing sister that is far more entertaining than she has any right to be. _

The Asset does not attempt to inform the handlers of any more mental impairments.

One day, one of the guards brings in a small radio to the barracks.

The Asset, lying nearby on its assigned bed, waiting for training to begin, does not outwardly react.

Inside its boots, its toes flex along to the beat.

A few weeks later, the girls practice a lullaby during one of their brief, five-minute breaks that the Asset has begun to permit them. Zoya needs it, otherwise her face gets too red and she struggles to breathe. The Asset gets many flashes when this happens, and its hands act of their own accord, _ tipping forward, c’mon, slowly, slowly, that’s it, you can do this, in-two-three-out-two-three- _

Anyway. 

The girls are on break, and they are singing. 

The Asset listens closely to the [lullaby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDMmj5WgB8c)

_ Tili tili bom, _

_ Close your eyes now, _

_ Someone’s walking outside the house _

_ And knocks on the door _

_ Tili tili bom, _

_ The nightbirds are chirping _

_ He is inside the house _

_ To visit those who can’t sleep _

_ He walks, _

_ He is coming _

_ …closer _

Such small girls should not sing such a scary song.

The thought comes unbidden, but stays in its- stays in _his_ mind much longer than it should.

The Asset knows a better song to teach them.

The Asset has been instructed to teach.

The Asset teaches them the nicer song.

It is in English, and their Russian-trained tongues occasionally trip over the words, but they enjoy the accompanying clapping rhyme.

_Patty-cake, patty-cake, bakers pan_

_Bake me a cake as fast as you can_

_Prick it, and pat it, and mark it with a ‘Z’_

_And put it in the oven for Zoya and me._

The Asset does not know where it learned this nice song.

The Asset does not know why its usually-unaccented English starts to slip into something more colloquial, slips into an accent that _tugs on his ‘A’s while Steve stares up at him in the music hall, his blond hair a crown in the gas-light-_

The Asset teaches the girls the nice song and does not inform the handlers of its impairments. The guards at the door do not seem to notice that the Asset is breaking many, many rules.

_Protocol 1.0: The Asset shall, under no circumstance, be permitted to sing, dance, or listen to music. This has been found to cause the Asset to become mentally impaired (see: The Prevention of Retrieval of Memories, Protocols 41-43) very quickly._

_Protocol 1.1: If the Asset is found singing, dancing, or listening to music, immediately prevent it from continuing. Punish it harshly, at minimum a level seven punishment (see: Rankings of Punishments, protocols 6-10). Wipe it. Return the Asset to cryofreeze immediately. Eliminate the personnel who allowed the infraction to occur. _

The Asset knows that it is breaking one of the most important Protocols when it slowly claps and teaches Zoya how to get the rhythm _just right, _but it does not care. The Widows, no, the _children_ must learn soft songs. Happy songs.

Natalia does not partake in the songs. She watches from the corner with big eyes, and the Asset suspects she knows he it is breaking protocol. She is small but already has found blackmail over the Asset. There is nothing _soft _about Natalia.

She shall be the most lethal Black Widow one day. The Asset knows that without a doubt.

It- _He_ teaches them more. They learn how to sever fingers and _It’s Raining, It’s Pouring_. They figure out pressure points that can make a grown man fall to his knees in seconds, and afterwards they sing _Baa, Baa, Black Sheep._

The flashes grow stronger, and soon begin to form themselves into audio clips, memory clips, short film reels instead of fleeting flashes. The Asset sings songs it should not know, ones about love and _I will be gone for a long, long time_, all the while images of a bright-eyed blond-haired boy dances around his head.

The children learn quickly, on a system of rewards that the Asset develops. The Asset had at first operated a system of punishments. But Zoya cannot withstand such a harsh regime, and she likes the songs far too much for the Asset to stop now.

The Asset has been with the Widows for five months, two weeks, and four days when Handler Яхонтов visits. She’s the proper one, the main one, the one with tentacles on her lapel that curl around The Asset’s spine and drips fear into his thoughts.

He does not let it show.

He stands up straight and all the children follow his lead, Natalia by his side, a little flash of fire in his peripheral vision.

The Asset leads them through their exercises while the Handler watches. Even stupid Zoya senses that something is different; instead of sharpening under pressure, she stumbles and falls constantly.

The Asset does not hold back when they spar. Most fall within seconds; Natalia manages nearly a half a minute, and there is an appreciative hum from the gathered crowd.

Zoya doesn’t even get a chance to blink before she’s down.

The Widows stand in a heaving, panting line afterwards. The Asset stands next to them, having not even broken a sweat.

They are dismissed; the Asset permits them to go and retrieve a drink of water.

In the corner, Zoya and another small girl, Alena, start to play patty-cake.

_Patty-cake, patty-cake, baker’s pan,_

_Bake me a cake as fast as you can._

Their high voices float over the crowd of murmurs, and Handler Яхонтов turns and stares.

The tendrils of dread seize the Asset’s lungs, forcing them to stop breathing.

“Girls,” Handler Яхонтов says with a sharp smile. Zoya and Alena turn quickly, and the following silence echoes around the room. “Where did you learn that song?”

Zoya glances at The Asset; it is quick, almost too fast to be seen, but it is enough.

Handler Яхонтов turns towards the Asset. 

What was confusion has turned to fury.

He- _It_ is afraid.

The Asset is never afraid.

“Asset?” Handler Яхонтов coos, advancing on it, sharp heels clicking against the concrete floor. The Asset forces itself to stand up straight, to focus on the empty space just to the left of Handler Яхонтов’s ear. “Did you teach the girls this...” Her lips curls against the word, “…lullaby?”

The Asset cannot lie.

The Asset wants to lie.

The Asset has no desires.

It gives a sharp nod, and although it is prepared, the sting of the slap does not hurt any less. Handler Яхонтов grabs its chin, forces its face closer to hers.

“Stay right here, okay, darling? I’ll be dealing with you later.” She whirls towards the guards, already interrogating them with cutting questions. The spectators blanch at her fury. 

The Asset surveys the girls. They are all watching with wary eyes, except Natalia. She looks- not smug, necessarily, but her eyes are screaming _ I told you so. _

The Asset feels a brief flash of pity for her; Natalia will never know softness.

Its attention is drawn away from them by Handler Яхонтов. She’s started screaming, nearly frothing at the mouth. 

“The hours, the time, the energy that Hydra has poured into the weapon might be RUINED because of you. I am leaving, and taking the Asset with me.” Handler Яхонтов spits in the guards’ faces. Zoya makes a sharp noise of hurt that cuts into the Asset far deeper than any knife could. 

Handler Яхонтов turns at the noise, surveying the room until her eyes latch onto Zoya once more. The Asset’s hands go cold as Handler Яхонтов smiles, a sickly-sweet thing that promises nothing but death and destruction. She pulls her blazer back into place and wipes the spit from her mouth with a blood-red handkerchief, turning what was seething, burning anger into something as thin, clear, and dangerous as a needle. 

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she announces to the room; her tone brokers no room for arguments. “I’m going to inform my superiors of this-” she waves her hand, the light reflecting off her gleaming red talons “_ incident, _ and I expect they will be very, _ very _ unhappy with you lot.” She pauses, lets the words sink in, and the gathered officials shift uneasily. "However, I _ might _ be able to get them to be lenient with you. For a price, of course.” 

The officers trip over themselves out of desperation, apologies and promises spilling out of their mouth in the face of HYDRA. 

“It’s very simple,” Handler Яхонтов continues, “An eye for an eye. Or, how about… an Asset for an Asset? You, after all, might’ve permanently compromised one of HYDRA’s most important weapons. It’s really only fair I take something from you as well.”

She approaches the Asset without fear, and the Asset has to fight to keep from flinching as she runs sharp claws along its jaw. 

“According to the guards here, you’ve been doing an _exceptional _job teaching these girls how to fight, hmm?” Her sweet facade grows just a tinge of terrible joy as she takes in the pale-faced room and wide-eyed girls. “So, let’s see… who would you say is the worst? The bottom of the pack. The runt, if you will. After all, we don’t want to take _too _good an Asset from the Motherland.”

The Asset knows immediately.

The Asset fights against the name.

_The Asset can not lie._

“Zoya,” it spits out, beckoning her forward; her pigtails bounce as she walks over quickly. 

Handler Яхонтов’s smile sharpens into something deadly. 

She opens up her jacket.

The grip of the gun sticks out of its harness, and the Asset knows what its punishment is.

_No._

_Not Zoya._

To its horror, tears fill its eyes.

Handler Яхонтов’s face twists in disgust.

“Do it,” she snaps, “Before I ask for a second girl.”

The Asset grabs the gun and fires in one smooth movement, before any of the girls (except Natalia, probably), know what it’s doing.

It catches Zoya’s body before she can hit the floor, cradles her, carries her like the child she is.

None of these girls knew any softness, any love, any _music._

The Asset brought them music and paid the price.

Something deep inside, an intimate part of the Asset that it didn’t know existed, shatters into millions of tiny pieces.

The message is very clear.

_Music is pain._

_Music is death._

_ Music killed Zoya. _

_________

The radio is on in the transport car for a moment; Handler Яхонтов quickly shuts it off.

Before, the Asset would have felt a leap of forbidden joy, would have spent hours carefully running the stolen fragment of music over and over again in its mind.

Now, it only stares at Zoya’s glassy eyes. 

They allow him to carry the body all the way back to the Chair, even though the driver wrinkles his nose and looks away.

He is still clutching her when the headpiece descends, crackling with lightning.

The phoenix dies and rises from the ashes.

The Asset blinks at the corpse lying in his arms; female, small, approximately six or seven years old; low threat, despite the hints of muscles on her arms. Cause of death: close-range gunshot wound to the head.

He tosses it aside without a second thought and embraces the waiting cold.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

Time: Unknown

Date: Unknown

Country: Unknown

Status: Beginning the unthawing process

The Asset is brought out of cryostasis.

It is in an unfamiliar lab.

It runs through protocols.

The technicians are speaking in English with American accents.

The Asset does not know why this gives it a small sense of satisfaction, but it tamps down on it nevertheless.

Handler Яхонтов is older than the last time it saw her. It does not know how much time has passed, but she has grey hairs. The Asset will be passed over to new leadership soon.

Handler Яхонтов is nervous; the Asset regards her with blank eyes, picking up on minute details. Increased heart rate, tapping fingers, an ever-moving eye line.

The Asset is given a retrieval mission. No witnesses.

The Asset is also given a motorcycle, a gun, and a license plate to track down.

It catches up with the car on a dark, winding road; the bearers of the package were trying to flee.

Fools.

The Asset shoots a tire, making sure that the car careens off the road, but not damaged enough to harm the package.

It retrieves the parcel with ease and strides to the front of the car to eliminate witnesses.

Male, seventies, severely injured: low threat. He’s crawling out of the car, blood spilling out of his nose and down his face.

“Help…” he croaks as the Asset pulls him upright by his hair. They stare at each other for a second, and the old man is superimposed by a _flash- younger, over-energetic, wouldn’t take no for an answer._

The man’s brow is furrowed.

“Sargent Barnes?” he breathes, and the Asset doesn’t know who that is, but the word sends a flash of _confusion and fear_ _and happiness and _**_hurt_** through it so strong that it does not hesitate. It punches the man in the face, once- twice- and he falls, dead.

The Asset stands there, panting, angry, confused, _ scared. _Blood is rushing through its ears, blocking out sound, heartbeat thundering.

“Howard?” A broken cry shatters the night, and the Asset is shaken out of its reverie. It has another witness to eliminate.

It stalks to the other side of the car and squeezes the life out of another human being: woman, sixties, low threat, hopeless, choking- _ dead. _

The mission is complete.

The Asset should return immediately to Handler Яхонтов.

The Asset does not.

The Asset stands there, chest heaving, hands shaking.

A voice breaks through the dark night- no, _[voices.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijpcUv-b8M)_

_ ‘Can anybody find me…’ _The radio.

The radio should not be functioning. The car crashed. The owners are dead. The parcel is retrieved. 

The radio is still functioning.

_ ‘…somebody to love?’ _the voices croon and they’re beautiful, magical, terrible. Disgusting. Horror, revulsion, and fear overwhelm its mind. 

_ ‘Each morning I get up, I die a little, can barely stand on my feet,’ _

Something inside the Asset screams and cries, terrified, horrified, shrieking that music is _ bad, _ music is _ death and pain and a little girl with a bullet hole in her head- _

The Asset shoots the radio, then punches it, just for good measure. Its flesh hand is trembling as it grips the motorcycle and roars away.

It informs Handler Яхонтов of the infraction, and turns over the parcel. 

It welcomes the pain of punishment, uses it as a tool, a knife, to cut out those melodic voices that seemed to imprint onto its brain.

Bucky Barnes, the lover of Steve, music, and not much else, is gone.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

Nicholas Joseph Fury: Level Six target: eliminate. The Target had escaped the Asset only hours before, drilled a hole right through the pavement after wiping out some of Hydra’s best elimination squads. 

Handler Pierce is furious. 

The Asset perches across the street from the building the Target is currently occupying. The main resident of the apartment has come home; tall, blond. 

He seems familiar; perhaps he is an old technician.

It is of no consequence to The Asset. The Target is the only thing that matters.

The Target moves, as if to get up, and the Asset shoots, once, twice, three times. 

The Asset barely has time to catch a glimpse of the tall blond man’s horrified face before it is moving, sprinting across rooftops, headed towards the extraction point. 

Beneath him- down two floors and to the left, in the Blond Man’s place of residence- someone is in pursuit. 

The Asset does not grin at the challenge. 

The Asset does _ not _grin at the challenge. 

The Asset is not permitted to display emotions. 

The Asset feels a thrill as it speeds up, legs pumping faster and faster.

Astonishingly, the pursuer manages to keep up. 

The Asset moves faster, faster- so close to the extraction point- and the pursuer _ catches up with him. _

They fling something and the Asset automatically turns and catches the object before the object can decapitate it. 

A shield. 

_ The _shield. 

Red, white and blue glint in the starlight, reflected in Blond Man’s eyes. 

He is familiar.

Why is he familiar. 

The Asset is distracted. 

The Asset has allowed a witness to survive. 

The Asset will be punished. 

The Asset feels a surge of- of anger, towards this man, this mission-ruiner. This terrible, terrible man; looking at him makes all the air leave the Asset’s lungs, and the Asset does not know why.

The Asset should probably keep the shield. 

  
Handler Pierce would be pleased if the Asset kept the shield. 

If the Asset keeps the shield, the man will not be able to protect himself. 

It flings it back, _ hard, _hard enough that the man skids back a few feet when he catches it, hard enough to sock him in the gut. Push all the air from his lungs.

Make him feel a little something in return. 

_  
_ By the time he looks up, that Blond-Tall-Blue-Eyed-Air-Stealing Man, the Asset is gone, disappeared, to the extraction point.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

The Asset is given a new mission. 

Three targets. 

Kill on sight. 

The first target is a traitor. Jasper Sitwell. He has been spilling secrets. Pierce is spitting mad. The Asset does not care.

The second has red hair and distrusting eyes. 

  
She is a Level Seven target. The Asset knows, somehow, that she should be at least Level Nine. She is slippery, hiding in corners and shadows, luring people in then killing them brutally. 

  
The Asset does not say this to its handlers. The Asset is a weapon. Nothing more. 

A haunting, lilting melody drifts in the back of its mind, the space beyond the blankness of the chair. It feels like it cuts into the Asset’s insides. The Asset ignores it and focuses on the third target’s file. 

The Asset feels its lungs stutter. 

Blond-Tall-Blue-Eyed-Air-Stealing Man stares up from the page.

His face is too big. 

  
Why is his face too big. 

He is a Level Seven. But he should be much more than that. Level Fifty, Level One-Hundred, if such a thing is conceivable. 

He is able to impair the Asset’s functioning with a look- 

A defiant smile through blood-stained teeth. 

He is so small. 

A delicate bird, or perhaps a small kitten. Hidden beneath a veneer of muscle and confidence. 

  
The Asset does not want to kill a small kitten.

  
  
The Asset has no desires. 

_ Ready to comply. _

_________________

The Asset rips out a steering wheel. 

Perhaps they will all die quickly, in a fiery crash that causes no pain. 

Unfortunately, little spiders are far too resilient for that to be their downfall. 

The Asset will give her one more chance to die easily. 

It rolls a small grenade underneath a car and as it explodes she is behind him. 

She is no match for the Asset. 

It, after all, taught her everything she knows.

  
  
It does not understand how it knows that. But the Asset recognizes her style, the way she moves with brutal efficiency and exact precision. And it knows how to find her flaws and cut them deep. 

She lasts barely longer than last time _ (last time?) _ and as she scrambles away she is superimposed by a younger spider with cool dark eyes who will know no softness. 

It lets her run, toying with her as a cat does a mouse- _ or spider- _ and shoots her in the shoulder. 

Not enough to kill. 

Why did it not take the kill shot. 

No time to think-

The Man is there. And he has taken all the air. 

The fist and the shield collide, an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. 

The Asset should have taken the shield. 

The Man uses the shield to block a quick round of bullets from the Asset. 

The Asset is glad it did not take the shield. 

The Man can <strike>protect himself</strike> evade mission objective with it. That is <strike>optimal</strike> suboptimal. 

Why does this man make scribbles in the Asset’s head. 

Protocols are being scrambled as they fight, crossed out and replaced. 

Every time the Asset goes for a fatal blow it is stopped. Not by the Man. But by ancient protocols. 

They sound like music.

_ Music is pain. _

In its distraction, the Man finally gets an upper hand. 

_ Music is death. _

The Soldier flips, rolls, at just the right trajectory. 

The mask comes off with a crack. 

The Man gasps _Bucky? _like the Asset should know what that means.

  
  
It is one word. 

_ Bucky. _

Why does it sound like a thousand different songs. 

The blank white space of its head is being invaded, taken over, pain and music and colours and _ flashes _ crowding in, corrupting the cleanliness. Interfering. 

Clogging the machine. 

A trigger finger that won’t work. 

_ Who the _ ** _hell _ ** _ is Bucky. _

Another man comes out of no-where, metal wings sprouting from his shoulder-blades, and kicks the Asset. 

The Asset comes up with a handgun already in its grip. 

It could shoot the Man right now. 

It _ should _shoot the Man right now.

From the corner of its eye, it sees a spider, forgotten by the wayside, with a grenade launcher. 

It hesitates a moment longer, allows her to engulf him in an explosion. 

It does not get back up. 

It will be punished most severely for this failure, but as the targets are led away, _ alive alive alive, _it does not feel like a failure at all. 

__________

It sits in the vault. 

The colours and music and flashes and _ memories _ are growing louder and louder in its mind, a snowy mountain, falling, falling, two flesh hands, _ are you an angel?, a little girl with a soft melody who got a bullet in the forehead- _

The metal arm snaps out almost without permission, sends the technician that was working on it flying. 

Pierce approaches. 

The Asset will be punished for the bridge. 

Punished for the technician.

What’s a little more pain?

The Asset dares to speak. 

It does not ask:

Why does the man on the bridge look like melodies. 

Why does he fight like music. 

Why does he want to make the Asset listen to _ more, more, more, _ even though the Asset’s brain is screaming _ pain, death, music is torture. _

Why is the man on the bridge too big. 

It asks _ who is he. Why do I know him. _

Pierce grounds out words about _ changing the century _ and _ gifts to mankind. _He does not have the talent that the little spider does to make the lies words slip and slide on the balance of true and false. 

The headpiece crackles with ensnared lightening. 

The phoenix is burning, burning. 

The colours go up in smoke. The music melts like crayons, dripping out of the Asset’s mind, burnt wax on the tongue, notes going dissonant and fading away. 

The phoenix takes flight, leaving the ground. 

It leaves behind a barren, blank wasteland.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_

The Asset stands across from a Man in the bowels of the helicarrier.

Mission: prevent chip implantation. Kill target.

The Asset’s head aches as they stare at each other. 

It is silent, in this vast cavern. Yet the Man brings music with him. Voices with him. Remnants of someone _ else _beg to be listened to in the back of its mind. 

The Man says _ don’t make me do this. _

And then they’re fighting, and it’s so _ loud. _

The Man’s entire body is a song, is music, melodies and harmonies and thousands of different instruments. It’s all so much, these colours and sensations exploding in the Asset’s mind even as they continue to exchange blows. 

The Man slams the chip into the lock and _ MISSION FAILURE _screams in the Asset’s head, just another voice, another layer adding to the chaos and confusion. 

The helicarriers are firing on each other, raining down agony as these behemoths shoot themselves out of the sky. Too much stimuli ricochets around the Asset’s brain, explosions and debris, the blank white of its mind is being overwritten-

A huge metal beam falls, and the Asset is trapped.

The Asset is helpless as the world is consumed by fire. 

The Man approaches. 

The Asset hopes that he makes it quick, if only to quiet the screaming, the music, the memories. 

Instead, he does the unthinkable. He lifts the beam, _ sets the Asset free. _

“You know me.” the Man says, calm, confident, even as the universe collapses into hell around them. 

_ T_he Asset launches himself as this Man, this person who makes everything _ wrong, _ who brings music and light into its existence. And music is _ pain _ and _ death _and needs to be gone. Eliminated.

“You’re my friend.” the Man whispers. 

“_ You’re my mission,” _The Asset screams back, hoarse, terrified, a ghastly crescendo. 

It’s a lie, though. 

He’s not a mission. 

He’s the most beautiful piece of m[usic ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcRuChk7Exo) The Asset has ever heard, and it’s painted in the way he moves, walks, bleeds, exists. 

The helicarrier is crumbling to pieces around them, nearly deafening, but all the Asset can hear is its fist as it pounds out a rough beat against the face of the most exquisite piece of art it has ever seen, heard, _experienced._

The man is not fighting back. 

_ Why is he not fighting back. _

_ He always fights back, tiny little Steve Rogers, ready to beat up the world at a moment’s notice. _

He takes the beating.

The Asset punches the man- the music- until he’s black and blue, bleeding, barely able to see. 

The Man gazes up at the Asset, calm, trusting, serene, and whispers-

He whispers-

_ “Are you an angel?” _

The words, phrase, the lyrics to their life together pour through the Asset’s body, stopping his fist, clogging the machine, jamming the gears. Re-writing the code.

A trigger finger that won’t work. 

A trigger finger that _ doesn’t want _to work.

A trigger finger that _refuses _to work. 

It- he- the Asset stumbles and hesitates right as a huge beam comes crashing down, tearing the walkway out from underneath them. 

The Asset holds on easily to the helicarrier, but the Man does not. 

The music trills, the music _ fades _ as he falls out of sight, and the Asset’s entire world is sideways right now but it knows that the man cannot fall. Cannot wither, cannot _ die. _

  
To allow the man to die is _MISSION FAILURE _on a scale larger than anything felt before.

It is not a choice, to rescue the man. 

It is not a decision, any more than a baby chooses to be born, or a flower chooses to bloom. 

It is simply a fact of life. 

This man- this captain- _ Steve _ will fall. And the Asset will catch him, whether that be in a back alley in Brooklyn, in the middle of a battlefield, or in a shiny new world that neither of them recognize. 

The Asset thinks that it has never heard a more wonderful sound than that ragged gasp of air Steve takes when they reach the surface. 

The Asset sits by Steve on the riverbank and listens to the rhythm of his heart and the rustling of his hair in the breeze. 

The universe shrinks down to just the two of them, _ an intimate little bubble that no one can touch, a small area that glows with their own private light in the corner of the music hall- _

The Asset does not know what it is, who it is. 

The Asset does not know how it knows this man. 

  
The Asset does not know why he is music, why he makes the Asset want music. 

The Asset knows only one thing, as the world continues to fragment around them, acrid smoke and flames engulfing the sky:

It will be by Steve’s side when he awakens.

_♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩♬♩♪♩_


	2. An Extrememly Fluffy Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Y'all asked for a fluffy epilogue... so here it is. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! 
> 
> I'm super surprised by the amount of love The Act of Makin' Noise has gotten- so first of all, thank you guys for that! 
> 
> A number of people have also asked for the * very very * fluffy epilogue. If you're here looking for the nitty-gritty-ness of the previous chapter, turn away now. Beyond this point lies disgusting amounts of fluff and nothing else. 
> 
> To everyone who has read TAMN and commented, given kudos, or even just silently appreciated: thank you. It's people like you who that encourage me to keep writing, and none of this would happen without y'all. 
> 
> Okay, enough fluffy emotions- there's more than enough of that in this chapter. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The bright sunlight spills through the living room windows as Steve puts the final touches on his painting. Behind him, he can hear Bucky bustling around the kitchen- he’s probably making cookies. 

It’s been nearly a year since Steve woke up in the hospital, Sam on his right and Bucky on his left. It’s been a tough year, one of the toughest Steve’s ever had, filled with blood and screams and  _ so many tears.  _

Charmaine- Bucky’s therapist- had told them, right at the beginning,  _ it’s going to get a lot worse before it starts to get better. And it’s never going to be always okay, there’s always going to be little blips and mess-ups, but I can promise it’ll be worth it.  _

Most of last year has been the  _ getting worse,  _ as Charmaine gently but mercilessly raked Bucky through his memories, through his self-hatred and guilt and everything else HYDRA did to fuck with his head. Neither of them have slept through the night for  _ months.  _

There are glimpses, though, of happiness. Steve got his Ma’s recipe book back from the Smithsonian just in time for Bucky’s birthday, and Steve will never forget the look on his face when he tried that apple cake, a mix of longing and nostalgia and pure  _ joy.  _

This year has been one of the best years of Steve’s life too, because every day he gets to see Bucky, be with Bucky, be  _ around  _ Bucky- and that’s something he thought he’d never get again. Bucky isn’t the same person as the grinning man in blue, egging him down the zipline, but Steve isn’t, either. Losing the thing- the  _ person-  _ you love most in the world will do that to you. 

But there’s one thing missing, one corner of the puzzle that makes up Steve and Bucky that seems to be simply  _ gone.  _

Bucky won’t sing anymore. 

At first, it was any sound. Steve was living with a ghost; Bucky floated around on silent feet, set glasses down without a noise, hell, he even managed to silence the _toilet. _

Having lived alone for the past three years, Steve was used to silence. But there’s- an expectation, when some-one else occupies the same space as you. Sure, the extra body wash was tucked in the corner of the shower, the drawers in the dresser were filled, but the heartbeat of the home was missing. 

So Steve put on music. He played anything, everything; old swing hits on the gramophone in the corner, new-fangled pop suggested by JARVIS, eighties hits Sam insists are  _ to die for.  _

Bucky startled, the first time music floated through their space, and left the apartment. He didn’t come back for nearly two days, two days that Steve spent pacing and worrying and  _ god I’ve fucked it all up, haven’t I?  _

He showed up in time for Steve to take him to therapy, though, and that’s what tells Steve they’re going to be okay. Therapy sucks, it really does, but it’s like cauterizing a wound. 

Bucky emerged in a shuffle, red-eyed and slightly listing to one side. Charmaine tends to take more out of him than a solid four hours of sparring does, so Steve gently guided him to the car. 

Silence bloomed between them as Steve pulled out of the parking space, and though Steve’s hand itched to turn on the radio, to fill the empty space  _ somehow,  _ but he didn’t. 

Bucky headed out to the gym once they get back to the Tower as he usually does- sometimes, after being  _ in  _ his head for so long, he needs to do nothing but escape his thoughts. Steve went to start dinner. 

Those days, when Bucky wasn’t in the apartment, everything seemed just a bit darker, a bit sharper. It’s not even the (lack of) noise he makes, it’s just his  _ presence,  _ the knowledge that he is there- that if Steve turned around, he’d be sitting at the kitchen table, or reading a book on the couch, or browsing the internet for new cookie recipes to make. (That was Charmaine’s idea- creation, instead of destruction. Steve has actually managed to get a little chub, he’s eaten so many, but he’s not complaining.) 

Without that security, the clattering of pots against each other as Steve got out a saucepan is a bit too much. 

He paused to set up the record player, and after a minute Debussy’s _ Arabesque No. 1  _ floated through the room. Steve could just turn it off when  _ (if? Please, God, no, not an ‘if’?)  _ Bucky came back.

Steve let himself get caught up in the rhythm of cooking. It’s a strangely beautiful sort of dance, the stirring and chopping and tasting all coming together. This has been a  _ thing _ , recently- Steve does the cooking, Bucky does the baking. Steve just let everything, all his worries and doubts and fears, flow off of him until there was nothing left but the recipe instructions on the page, the pasta cooking on the stove, and the soft notes swirling through the air. 

He must’ve been more out of it than he thought, because before he knew it, the front door  _ snipped  _ close, and Bucky appeared, sweaty and leaning on the kitchen island. 

“Oh- sorry, I’ll just-” Steve went to turn the record player off, even as he dreaded the yawning silence that’ll follow, but Bucky stopped him with a shake of his head. 

“No, it’s, uh-” Bucky stammered, caught on his words. “It’s okay. Well, not  _ okay,  _ but- fine. It’s fine. Good, actually. Uh, progress. I think.” he finished lamely, then looked up at Steve. 

Steve carefully  _ did not  _ react beyond a small quirk of his lips even as part of himself is fist-pumping.

And, well, if Steve chopped a bit more enthusiastically as Bucky left to take his shower, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

That was around three months ago. Since then, Steve has taken to filling their lives with as much music as possible, burning through the repertoire that’s been recommended to him, and they’re now branching out to some new stuff. 

Sometimes, though, Steve wants to listen to what he  _ knows. ‘ _ Sometimes’ being especially when he’s working on  _ a certain painting. _

And that leads us back up till now- with smooth 30s jazz being lifted through the bright sunlight as Steve finishes  _ a certain painting  _ and Bucky toodles around the kitchen behind him. 

He leans back, taking it all in with a critical eye.

On the canvas, a thin blond boy stands in a trash-filled alleyway and stares up at a brunette leaning out of a window, a single beam of sunlight splitting the gloom. 

It’s good,  _ really  _ good, actually. But there’s- something missing, a key corner piece that’s been gone from Steve and Bucky’s life for too long. Steve stares at it, lets himself get lost in memory of running and blood and an angel’s voice descending from no-where. Almost without his permission, he picks up his finest brush and begins to fill in music notes. White, dream-like music notes, spilling from the brunette’s window, tumbling down, a waterfall of glory, bathing the blond in light. 

Now, Steve doesn’t really believe in  _ miracles,  _ and he’s not particularly superstitious. War does that to you- you see to many good men die to ever believe in anything like  _ karma.  _ There was a time, when he believed in god, but that’s just not possible after he’s seen all the horrors of humanity. 

But even through all of that? All that disbelief, all that horror?  _ Something  _ bigger must’ve intervened right then. 

Because at that exact moment, when Steve is painting near-invisible music notes trailing out a window, _that _song comes on.

‘_It had to be you…’ _Marion Harris croons, and 

All

Clicks

Together. 

_ _ Steve doesn’t even register it, at first. 

He’s too lost in the memory, lost in punk eight year old leaning out an open window, lost in the years that have gone by and the terrible, terrible things that they’ve done, and yet, _and yet, _Bucky is still alive. Bucky is still _there. _Steve lets himself drown in the memory of it all, in the lilting voice and soaring melody. It’s so real, Steve can almost hear it- Bucky’s perfect harmony soaring underneath Marion Harris crooning _‘It had to be you,’_

A pan clatters in the kitchen behind him and Steve snaps out of his mind, out of a dark alley filled with Bucky’s voice…

And back into a bright apartment filled with the exact same thing.

Steve tries not to cry, he really does. But who would’ve thought? Who would’ve  _ guessed?  _ That those two little boys, staring down and up at each other through a wonderful haze of music, would become  _ this.  _ This beautiful, messy, glorious relationship that spans centuries and wars and wastelands. 

Steve has his art, Bucky has his music, they are happy and warm and loved and  _ together.  _

How could Steve not cry, when he realizes that all the pain and suffering was worth it, for this one moment of perfection?

Bucky appears in the doorway to the kitchen, hand towel tossed over his shoulder, a small frown wrinkling his brow. 

“You okay there?”

“Yeah,” Steve says thickly, “It’s just- you- you’re singing again.” 

Bucky looks down at his foot, tapping along as Marion Harris continues to sing in the background, and a wide smile nearly splits his face in two as he looks back to Steve.

“Yup,” he replies, nonchalance betrayed by a slight tremor in his voice, “I guess I am.” 

The next morning, Steve just lies awake in their bed and listens to Bucky sing Rihanna the shower- because of course he sings in the shower, and of course he sounds  _ damn good  _ doing it. 

Their lives might have been leading up to, culminating at that one perfect moment in the living room. But that doesn’t mean their lives are over, no, far from it. 

Because now that Steve’s tasted that perfection, that pure happiness, he’s going to keep working until they reach that point again and again and again- until their lives are just a stream of beautiful perfect moments, one after another after another, forever tumbling over themselves, spilling out of their hearts, a never-ending melody of happiness and  _ love.  _

Because Steve has Bucky, and Bucky has Steve, and that’s all that’s needed to create an incredible symphony of life. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any and all kudos and comments are loved and appreciated! 
> 
> Let's give a round of applause to my lovely artist. You can find her on AO3 at HeyBoy, and on Tumblr at HeyBoyDraws. Her drawings are beautiful, interesting, and (occasionally) humorous. Check her out and give her some love! 
> 
> You can find me, well... right here on ao3! I have * plans * for several other (longer!!) fics in the works, so keep an eye out for those. 
> 
> Thank you to the lovely mods that run the Stucky Big Bang, for giving me the motivation and inspiration necessary to write this piece.
> 
> As always, hate comments are pointless! I will simply delete them. Please keep any unnecessary negativity to yourself.
> 
> Once again, thanks for reading- and see you next time!
> 
> :D


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